When the Bough Breaks 1994

Following a gruesome discovery of a bag of severed hands in the sewer system, State Profiler Audrey Macleah Ally Walker is brought in to help the Houston Police Department investigate. The hands appear to belong to young girls of different ages, each palm bearing a tattoo of a number. Captain Swaggert Martin Sheen orders a careful, methodical approach, sending Macleah to a nearby psychiatric hospital to speak with a doctor who reported a tip about one of his patients after hearing about the discovery.

The lead patient is Jordan Thomas Tara Subkoff, a boy who has lived in foster care and institutions since the age of four. On his birthday he suffers seizures, his wrists bleed, and he carves numbers into walls—creating a chilling pattern that seems to connect him to the missing girls. Despite Jordan’s initial reluctance to talk, Macleah earns his trust and uncovers a psychic link between him and the killer, a connection that hints at something larger and darker than ordinary crime.

As Macleah digs through medical files and databases, she discovers that the seized hands correspond to girls who vanished on Jordan’s birthday, July 16, from parks around Houston. A video of a missing girl includes a familiar tune—the ice cream truck song that Jordan hums when he visits—leading to a dead end about a pedophilic driver. On Jordan’s birthday, during a hypnotic session, his alter-ego Jennifer Lynn reveals something awful: the hands were given from Daddy so she can play.

In parallel, a new lead emerges when a young girl is seen wandering through the woods with her dog and finding an unattended ice cream truck before being abducted. Macleah, with the help of a colleague, identifies that a Jennifer Lynn Eben has been deceased for some time, and she travels to the shuttered hospital to uncover birth records for Jordan Brian Eben, who was surrendered for adoption after the hemorrhaging death of his mother, Jennifer Lynn. A clue comes into sharper focus: a female twin, Jennifer Lynn Eben, born with severely malformed hands, and the attending physician at their birth was their father, Dr. Douglas Eben.

Macleah’s investigation leads her to the Eben estate, where a housekeeper reveals that Eben is away on vacation but welcomes Macleah inside. Among photographs of the mother, she notices a striking image of a dark-haired woman standing in front of a house by a water tower. On leaving, Macleah follows the water tower and locates the house. She gains entry through an open gate and moves through the home into the basement, where a locked room houses a crude medical operating setup and a furnace. A shower in the corner signals the grim space behind the facade. There, she finds the missing girl from the ice cream truck, terrified but alive.

After freeing the girl, Macleah discovers Jenny hiding behind a wardrobe in the adjacent room. They attempt to escape through a basement window, but their plans are interrupted when Douglas Eben returns, bearing Jenny a birthday gift. Macleah hides and watches as Eben lights candles, asks Jenny to play the piano, and momentarily softens before the whimper from the medical room pulls him toward the truth. A confrontation ensues; Macleah sets Eben on fire and fires her weapon, bringing the killer down as the two young captives escape.

In the aftermath, Captain Swaggert drives Jenny, whose hands remain bound, to meet Jordan, whom Macleah has discharged from the psychiatric hospital. The twins share a tearful embrace, a quiet, hopeful ending to a harrowing case that binds their fates together and closes a brutal chapter in Houston’s crime history.